WHAT is it about art that arouses strong feelings, even wild emotions?

We’ve seen the riotous outrage in response to the Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Many Americans can’t understand the anger that’s out there. As a rule, we don’t react with vengeance when we dislike art, even religious art. But we do react.

Maybe we need more art-appreciation schooling to understand the nuances of art. Many Americans don’t understand what artists are trying to convey with their works.

But almost everyone has strong feelings about art when it pops up in the neighborhood unannounced and not “invited” by the community.

Here in Oakland, where process is everything, inevitably there are angry challenges if proper protocol is not followed.

Just such a dispute is now playing out over a mural on a Caltrans retaining wall on East 33rd Street between Beaumont and 14th avenues at the Interstate 580 exit.

Robert G. Patten, long a resident of East 33rd Street, is protesting the lack of process and has created a stir in Oakland City Hall over the mural.

The Public Ethics Commission, the city manager’s office, the city attorney and the Cultural Arts Commission are or will be wrestling with the problem, which involves a resident of East 33rd, Caltrans and the artist, Carol Vee, also a resident of the street. She created the mural and planted some flowers in the public space. It sounds innocent enough.

But Vee was supposed to get permission from the city’s “Adopt-A-Spot” program and Caltrans before planting flowers and painting a bare wall. Apparently she was unaware it was a transgression. And how was she to know?

Since Patten raised his complaint, Vee is now trying to get permission from the city for a retroactive permit or whatever it takes to keep the mural.

It’s hard not to like the 100-foot mural, which has a childlike quality and features a row of colorful flowers and a printed message in a valentine that says: “Help keep ourneighborhood a clean and safe and beautiful place to live.”

It’s so sweet and simple, it grabs your heart. And you wonder how it could make someone angry.

But it isn’t the mural itself that makes Patten angry, he says, it is the lack of community process.

Most of the neighbors and the city staff like the mural.

Even Patten admits liking it “all right,” although as a former art instructor, he’s critical of the color of the background and execution. Initially, he called the mural “ugly,” so progress has been made.

Mainly, it’s in an awkward place, a confusing intersection that is heavily traveled by drivers getting on and off the freeway. You can’t get the distance from it to properly view the mural, which is quite imposing.

Patten says it was put there instead of where it could be viewed easily because the artist can see it from her home on East 33rd. I was unable to reach the artist for comment.

The city got involved after Patten complained to the city manager and the Public Ethics Commission about a meeting of Caltrans and city staff that he believed was a violation of state open meeting laws.

Dan Purnell, PEC director, investigated and found the meeting was not a violation of the Brown Act because only

staff, not elected officials, attended.

The outcome of the PEC investigation and action was a recommendation from Purnell that the Public Ethics Commission dismiss the claim of the illegal meeting.

Next the issue will go before the Cultural Arts Commission on March 6. If the panel approves the “Adopt-A-Spot” application and neighbors support the idea, it then could go to Caltrans, which has a rule that a transportation art proposal must be supported by the local agency with the community immediately affected by the artwork.

Meanwhile, Patten is circulating a petition among those who feel the mural is in the wrong place and was placed there without community support.

It’s a lengthy, time-consuming process, but it sure beats taking to the streets over art you don’t like.

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